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Sermon - Fifth Sunday after Pentecost (B) - 5th July 2009
St Aidans' Anglican Church West Epping - 10am
Reading: 2 Sam 5:1-5, 9-10, 2 Cor 12:2-10, Mark 6:1-13
[Thank you for your warm welcome. It’s a pleasure to be here, especially to acknowledge the many fine students from this parish who have studied at Trinity—John Gumbley, Robin Boyd, Stuart Thompson, and Thom Leslie among them. Each has been a gift to the Church and a blessing to the School. Thom, for example, whose honours work I am now supervising, is also serving as College sacristan, and the Chapel has run as smoothly and well-oiled as it does now. I give thanks to God for them all, and hope that you will remember them in your prayers.]
Aren’t you surprised to hear the words in this morning’s gospel? Mark records Jesus speaking these words:
“Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place. 11 If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.” (Mark 6:10-11)
This doesn’t sound very much like the inclusive Jesus who urged the crowds to ‘turn the other cheek’, or the Jesus who died on the cross for us, while we were still sinners, who died at the hands of those who had rejected his message, asking God to “forgive them for they know not what they are doing” (Luke 23:34), who got around, eating and drinking with all sorts—Samaritans, outcasts, prostitutes and sinners, Jews and Gentiles. In fact, this doesn’t sound like the good news of acceptance and forgiveness at all. What’s going on here, in this passage?
Well, in short, if you were to push any New Testament scholar (and I am not talking here about some radical Jesus Seminar nutcase, but a mainstream, careful, even cautious scholar, they would in the end admit that Jesus probably did not utter the words we heard this morning. This is most probably Mark speaking, not Jesus. How do we know? There are three criteria biblical scholars use to sort out the possible and probable sayings of Jesus from those that have been added to or changed re-remembered, misremembered?) by the gospel writers. These criteria of authenticity, as they are called, are not without their problems, but they offer the best guide we have. First, the criterion of dissimilarity, (that is, is the saying of Jesus unlike anything in Judaism or the experience of the early Church?), secondly, the criterion of multiple attestation, (how many Gospels does the saying appear in?—the more the better), and thirdly, the criterion of coherency (does the saying ‘fit’ with the picture of Jesus we get from applying the other two criteria?). Although this saying appears in a similar form in three of the gospels, it fails the other two tests—most of it can be paralleled in the teaching of popular Hellenistic philosophers of the time and amongst the Essene community, and it does not ‘fit’ with the Jesus who urges turning the other cheek and who prays for forgiveness for those who kill him.
Instead what we have here is a re-drafting of the words of Jesus, shaped to fit the concerns and experience of the gospel writers. We can see this quite clearly when we set the accounts of the story in each gospels side-by-side, in Matthew 10, Luke 9 and 10, and here in Mark 6:
Mark 6:10-12 (c. AD 70, Rome??) |
Luke 10:8-12 (c. AD 80-85, who knows where?) |
Matthew 10:11-15 (c. AD 85-90, Antioch?) |
10 He said to them, “Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place.
11 If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.” |
Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; 9 cure the sick who are there, and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’
10 But whenever you enter a town and they do not welcome you, go out into its streets and say, 11 ‘Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off in protest against you. Yet know this: the kingdom of God has come near.’ 12 I tell you, on that day it will be more tolerable for Sodom than for that town. |
11 Whatever town or village you enter, find out who in it is worthy, and stay there until you leave. 12 As you enter the house, greet it. 13 If the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it; but if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you.
14 If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town. 15 Truly I tell you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town. |
When you compare them, each story is different—it becomes longer, more involved, some bits are added, and other drop out. Some of these differences are trivial enough—in our version from Mark, for example, the earliest of the Gospels, written c.60-70 AD, the disciples are allowed to wear sandals, but by the time Luke and Matthew are writing, twenty or thirty years later, sandals are forbidden. A victory for fashion, perhaps, but not otherwise very important. Other differences, however, are more significant. Over all, the most notable thing is that each retelling of the story becomes more and more vicious towards those who do not respond to the disciples’ message. The trend begins in Mark, where Jesus simply says, “…if any place will not welcome you or listen to you, shake the dust off your feet when you leave, as a testimony against them” (Mark 6:11). In Luke, maybe ten years later, it’s got worse for the villagers. The threat of a Sodom-like destruction is added. By the time we get to Matthew (10:1-15), another five or ten years later than Luke, we find the same threat that Luke adds, that “it will be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah on the Day of Judgement”, but here disciples are only sent out to the “lost sheep of Israel” (v.6) in the first place. Gentiles like us are not included. As this story gets re-told, God’s grace is being continually squeezed, offered to fewer people, and in a more restricted way. The early church is in the process of defining itself, assuring itself of its own importance by damning all those who stand outside it. What we end up with is a kind of ‘one-strike-and-you’re-out’ policy, which seems to loose much of the original, distinctive and inclusive preaching of Jesus.
Now, luckily this could never happen today. I cannot think of any instance in recent times or of anything in the news where God’s grace has been squeezed like this, or denied to a group of people just because of who they are. Can you? I didn’t think so. And that’s just as well. 2 Timothy reminds us that, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness” (2 Tim 3:16). Sometimes it is useful as something to imitate, occasionally it is useful as an example of something to avoid. We owe it to God to be able to tell the difference, to sift the wheat from the chaff. That way we keep hold of the authentic, radical inclusive preaching of Jesus, and in studying the bible, we will avoid the trap of worshiping the bible itself, as Biblical fundamentalists sometimes do, instead of worshipping the living all-embracing Christ to whom the Bible points.
The Revd Dr Timothy Gaden -- Dean of the Trintiy College Theological School -- tgaden@trinity.unimelb.edu.au